NASA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first American in orbit.
Back in 1959, NASA selected John Glenn as one of the original group of seven astronauts for the Mercury program.
Three years later, he blasted off to the famous words, "Godspeed John Glenn," becoming the first American to orbit the Earth. To honor this landmark, we’re taking a look back at Glenn’s historic flights into space.
First American to circle the Earth
On February 20, 1962, Glenn made his famous journey around the planet aboard NASA's Friendship 7 spacecraft. During the nearly five-hour mission, he circled the globe three times. The mission wasn't perfect. A trouble indicator light warned that a clamp holding the spacecraft's heat shield had been released too early. Mission controllers feared that the heat shield was loose. The shield was meant to protect Glenn's spacecraft from burning up during re-entry. As a safety measure, a "retropack" that would normally have been jettisoned was allowed to stay on the spacecraft to hold the heat shield. It turned out that warning light was a false alarm. Glenn splashed down safely to much fanfare at home. Watch the incredible archival footage of this historic trip.
Oldest astronaut
Glenn made headlines again in 1998 when he rejoined NASA at age 77 to become the oldest person ever to go into space. Glenn’s trip aboard the shuttle Discovery helped NASA learn about the effects of space flight on older people. Watch him quip about breaking a hip in space.
American legend
Friday, at age 90, Glenn joined fellow “Mercury Seven” astronaut Scott Carpenter to reminisce about their adventures and reflect on the U.S. space program. Appropriately, it was Carpenter who announced those famous words a half century ago: "Godspeed John Glenn." Learn just how dangerous their missions were and what types of concerns that scientists had about Glenn’s health.
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Lets not forget Alan Shepard's flight in 1961 He was my first hero
Then, we took great risks to make American science and technology preeminent. It was the American Century. Now, we scoff about evolution, global warming, and moon landings. Whose century is it now?
Where's our Moon Base Alpha? 50 years have past and no return or progress on the moon. Makes me wonder if there's something they're not telling us. I must confess I love our brave little robots on Mars. But is seems the pace of progress is excruciatingly slow. Moon Base Alpha! Moon Base Alpha!
Woops! Make that "passed."
I read about two rather crepey items in the Q & A the selling of one's teeth for use in wax works, and visualizing a young Marie sorting through severed heads in the cemetery. Interesting but disturbing.But, the book sounds wonderful and I hope to win a copy. Thanks for the giveaway.
We lost Yuri Gagarin years ago, so I'm glad we still have John Glenn. These early astronauts were real heroes, and deserve to be remembered as role models for many years to come.
So much nastiness and debate on something 50 years ago. Why?
History is history, lament, remember and marvel at what humankind (not just Americans but all on earth) have achieved.
Just a side thought, if the moon landing was fake, surely the Russians would have made noise, especially since they were also so close to achieving the same goal.
Expend your aggression if you have to on something you can change – the now and the future. Global warming, starving uneducated children, women without rights, religious hatred against each other and the gay community. Surely in this time and place our energy could be better spent on the things we could and should change.
When I was 12 in 1962, John Glenn was everyone's hero. Today, many of those who witnessed the Atlas launch so long ago are no longer with us. But those of us that are still around, even after 50 years, still think he's the bravest man in the entire world. "Second star to the right and straight on till morning" John!!
Fake Moon Landing. 🙁 Tell the astronaut to upload youtube video to Earth. See how long does take to stream over here.
These people who faked the moon landing Make Me So Mad! They should be taken to the edge of the world, and pushed off.
ma coyote, please leave your stupid conspiracy theory junk on youtube, where all the internet's junk belongs.
Uhh...I think that was something called sarcasm. Don't get out much do you twisted?
Yes, ma, and they can take the Whitney junkies with them. I remember when the M in MTV stood for music, and then the first N in CNN stood for news.
When I was child, Glenn was my hero. That all changed though, following his role in the Keating scandal, and later using his power and position to muscle himself an expensive joyride on the Space Shuttle, ostensibly to determine the effects of zero G on older people. He always was a showboater.
I say he earned it.
I loved Space Food Sticks! My mom would buy a box and they would be gone in one day! Chocolate & Caramel were my favorites. Don't realcl liking the orange ones.
U.S. manned space presence: in with a bang, out with a whimper..godspeed..
Quite an accomplishment ! And how fortunate we are to have an equally talented group of astronomers, engineers and physicists picking up where NASA left off. I'm speaking of the brain trust at the famous Sarah Palin Galactic Observatory / Bait Shop and their counterparts at the equally prestigous Sarah Palin University, collectively known as the "Space Baggers".
It's been 50 years and now America can't even put a person in orbit. "Houston, Washington DC here, mediocrity has landed."
are you really this dense or are you trying? What do you think the space shuttle did all these year... just go straight up and straight down?
The USA is like an old man. Our best days are behind us. All we have are the stories of past glory.
Traveling in deep where theirs no fiction on spaceship one can travel from A to B almost instant in total darkness only see light when in the atmosphere of a planet. Speed is unlimit all those you are moving yet standing still as far as time and reaction.
This is not correct. Even though a spacecraft is weightless in space, it still has mass. In order to increase its velocity, you need fuel to release energy in order to accelerate the mass. The increase in velocity is therefore limited by the amount of fuel you can carry. To get to the speed of light you would need enough fuel to produce an infinite amount of energy. It's true that once an object is accelerated in space, it tends to remain at that speed due to a lack of friction, but you need to get the object moving first. The other consideration is that you are going to need to carry additional fuel to slow down if you want to stop at your destination and then eventually come back.
Only two ways to gain speed in space..one a planet atmosphere, two it gravity other wise you will float for every. When leaving a outer space planet you can feel the acceleration then nothing. What every method to slow a spaceship down is beyound me. ..but you can feel a small jerk before enter the atmosphere of a planet.
I like seeing rocket scientists in forums.
"FOOLS THE LOT OF YA FOOLS"
In the next 50yrs we'll see what space exploration brings now that armed US & Chinese satellites are eyeing each other.
Right now, China and Russia has the capability to send humans into LEO. The USA does not.
Who, exactly, has the more advanced space tech?
Where do all these "they faked the moon landing" fruits come from? – my own theory is that it is a vain attempt to look like the "smart one" – the one who has it "figured out" and "can't be fooled" – but where do you go when someone is too dumb to figure out they're dumb ?......... sheesh....
Well done to JG and all the past achievents of the program, I had the privalege of meeting a back room guy from the Apollo program about 10 years ago.
One thing that seems to be always overlooked, is that if (big "if") the moon landings were faked, that by itself would have been a demonstration of fantastic level of technology, given what was possible 50 years ago. "Photoshop" would not have been invented for another 20 or 30 years.
I REFUSE TO HONOR JOHN GLENN. The decent astronauts were brave but humble men, realizing that that they were put the top of the pyramid of thousands of people who worked hard to make America's space achievement's possible. John Glenn may have been this at some point, but then he parlayed the people's admiration for his unrelated aerospace achievements into a Senate seat. Fair enough, but then he really went over the top when the Republican Senator from Ohio totally absconded on the important job that the electorate hired him to do and went on what was the most expensive junket in American history – while a serving US Senator, for no reason other than his own vanity, he trained and went to space on the pretense of studying the effects of space travel on the elderly. Nonsense! Not a single paper of any significance came out of his "research" trip. It was a scam, and a terrible sign to younger generations that "the government will make special favors for you if you are rich and powerful." It was a disgusting abuse of power by Glenn, and as such I have not one iota of respect for the man, who in effect neglected his duty as a senator, stole money from the US taxpayers, made a mockery of science and took a more deserving person's place on the space shuttle. To heck with you, John Glenn!
Don't be too hard on Sen Glenn. Astronauts and aviators as a group are hard-chargers anyway. Doers. John Glenn has always been a leader. Hey, he was Marine, right? That tells youA LOT about the guy.
John Glenn was a Democrat, so I don't follow your bit about "the Republican Senator from Ohio..."
I apologize if I was wrong about his party affiliation. I did not mean to impugn one party or another, but simply to list a fact. If he was a democrat, shame on the democrats.
To the other poster: that he was a marine and so theoretically knew the importance of service makes his dereliction of duty as US Senator and his subsequent corrupt use of funds to not end but the flattery of his own ego even worse. The whole point of our system of government is supposed to be that we treat people "equally", regardless of whether we have fond memories about their activities in the past or whether they have "nice personalities." "Hard charting?" Would you use this as a term of endearment for various bankers who have likewise enriched themselves at the expense of all Americans?
Yeah, why honor a 'fake hero' like Glenn, when we can revere a real hero like Obama.
Or George W. Bush, that most heroic of military heros!
Or memorialize Whitney Houston by interrupting three hours of news on CNN?
You're just a loudmouth blowhard. His achievements makes you look like an idiot that has nothing to do but degrade great Americans. Who's next on your list? Try looking at yourself, because you're sucking at putting other great people down.. And i would bet money you think you're perfect. Godspeed Idiot.
James, lighten up, bud. NASA leadership decided to honor an American space pioneer by allowing him to become, in addition to the first American to orbit our planet, the oldest American to ever go into space, a feat that quite possibly might never be surpassed. I personally have no problem with that.
I'm in the industry, so I happen to know that the Astronaut Corp DID take it personally: Years of sacrifice and training, individuals waiting for their turn up, and what happens? Poliitical power steps in and grabs a seat.
if you have no problem with that, then start a collection and send him up in a private space venture. NASA is not some social club where we spend tens of millions of dollars to send people up "to thank them". Doubly and triply so if the person in question was a serving US senator who had taken an oath to serve the people and not indulge in expensive and time-consuming frivolities.
If we did a survey, i'm sure you'd tick all the boxes that say that you want a hard-working, honest, non-corrupt senator who sticks to the facts and whose judgements arent swayed by sentimentality or emotion. but here, you tell me to "lighten up." No, i think *you* need to get a sense of what government is supposed to be.
Really? You're mad because he went back into space at age 77? I think that you just like being mad. John Glenn served honorably as a Marine, as an astronaut and as a Senator.
you seemed to miss the fact that he took his space junket WHILE ACTING AS A SENATOR. in other words, you have hero blindness to his huge dereliction of duty, to say nothing to his waste of millions of dollars for no scientific benefit.
What have you done in your life?
I was five years old at the time of Glenn's first flight. It made, even at that young age, a deep impression on me. The man behind Glenn is, I believe, Alan Rochford. Al was a former Navy diver – which put him in a great position to be one of the co-designers of the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo spacesuits. Alan is a good friend of mine and lives not to far from me. He's very modest about his rxperiences with NASA but he and many other pad techs were very brave – after all the pad explosions before the manned flights and the unstability of the Altas rocket all of them earned hero status.
This was another Hollywood production!
Something you crackpots conveniently choose to ignore is that Russia, China, and India have all sent rovers, landers, orbiters, or some combination thereof, to the moon. Does it really, honestly make sense to you that these spacefaring nations are all incapable of figuring out "the conspiracy", but you, sitting there at your computer at Paranoia HQ, have it all figured out? Does that truly make sense to you? I sure hope not, because it doesn't make any sense to anyone else, either.
The crazy notions you cling to don't pass even a basic logic check. Why isn't that obvious to you?
hahahaha
Sadly, there's still no cure for stupid.
There are tons of experiments and information that prove your crazy conspiracy theory incorrect.
You need help. I'm serious. Your delusion is a symptom of a more serious mental health issue. You need to see a mental health professional and get some help before you hurt yourself or someone else.
That the moon landing was faked is a hoax perpetrated by The Flat Earth Society.
You deniers crack me up!
Isn't Sarah Palin the president of the Flat Earth Society?
to Centerlink
Centerlink
Obama would gladly increase the space budget if Republicans weren't filibustering and demanding the money go to Wall Street bankers and oil companies instead. umm hello, obama spends trillion on bail outs, AND sends millions for oil subsidies to south america, where george soros has invested heavily. obama and george soros are in bed together, so to speak. so its been 3 years of doing nothing but sink this country for obama, only to have him say oh you gotta give it a while longer for it to set in. I dont want what obama has to set in, to set in. NObama, no you cant
It can be assumed from your lame troll that you voted for the 8 years of Bush/Cheney that brought the economy to where it is, and that your only solution is to elect more republicants. Enjoy ruining the country, do you?
Both parties were responsible in NASA budget cuts. It was Bush who decided to cut the shuttle program. The shuttles were 30 years old and too dangerous to fly. Obama continued with the cuts bu scuttling the Orion program for now. As fate would have it, we must rely on the russians now to get americans into space.
You can't sink a country that George W. Bush already submerged.
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The liberals can't think of anything to do but whine about not seeing enough women, black, or gay astronauts. The conservatives are still mad about the wheel being invented, and think the space program was a big waste of the taxes they try so hard to dodge. The Americans are proud that we somehow pulled together and made the impossible possible.
Give some folks like you a computer and they think they're either William Shakespeare or a U.N. peacebroker. Both jobs have their drawbacks.
The significance at the time was that the first two American space flights were just up-and-down affairs without orbiting the earth, which the Russians had already achieved even before Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom did those two suborbital flights. John Glenn's flight put us in the major leagues!
Thank You for the memories, the history, and for sharing your gift, intelligentsia, and unselfish love for mankind to explore the unknown in order to make it more known. Also, I want to thank your family for sharing a portion of your greatness with humanity.
I don't see such an honor for him. First of all, he was a racist bigot. Next, he specifically worked to keep women out of the space program even when he was in congress many years later. He believe only men should go into space and felt that back then and feels the same way now. I don't see the need to give him any more honors because he stands for the bigoted, chauvinistic ways of the 60's and 70's.
He still accomplished more than some whining liberal ever will.
lol
...actually, he was a DEMOCRATIC senator from Ohio, so...
The community of scientists who were located around the Cape Canaveral area in the early 60's contained a very liberal crowd of academics who made the space program work. A good old friend of mine spent a lot of time with them. More conservative whining about liberals I see here.
Provide the proof Rick.
When JOHN GLENN is gone, first man to orbit earth, military honor,...........
WILL HE GET FLAGS AT HALF STAFF WHEN HE'S GONE, LIKE THE POP STAR DRUG ADDICT?
Not as long as anti-space Obama is president. Now, if Glenn were to fly, he'd be like the U.S., begging hat in hand to the Russians and Chinese.
Obama would gladly increase the space budget if Republicans weren't filibustering and demanding the money go to Wall Street bankers and oil companies instead.
Too bad you don't know the facts. It was the W who cuts the shuttle program, and again, John Glenn was a democrat!
Yuri Gagarin was the first to orbit the earth. Damn ruskies...
Agree! What country lowers it's flag for pop stars- druggies or not? The US flag is supposed to be soooo sacred, but it is just being used as a prop. Get a grip, America. The rest of the world are shaking our heads.
How long does it take to get a positive and congratulatory comment on a great and brave accomplishment.
We have kinda gone backwards in the past 50 years. After the great space race of the 60s, we had so much potential. Now NASA's budget is about a tenth of what it was then. We are sending automated probes to places we can go ourselves and explore. We are burdened by our economies. We have stopped being explorers. Maybe there is a something good which does come out of war (Cold War)
I remember it well and was so proud; I still am!
Not to take away from the moment, but it's ironic that the U.S. now depends on Russia to get people into space.
My evolution teacher in Community Collage say MOON LANDING IS FAKE because the distance earth and moon. There's no way you can powered a tiny ship and travel speed of light appeared 1970s TV.
He say RELIGION IS FAKE... FAKE like EASTER.
Really? Sounds like you are both drunk.
I would say that you need to retake your grammar 101 class. Half of what you say doesn't make sense. A space craft goes about 10,000 KM/hr to reach the moon, not the speed of light. If the space craft was going the speed of light, it would take less then one second to get there. You are an idiot, and by the way, so is your professor
Actually, the mean distance between the Earth and moon is ~240,000 miles, so with the speed of light at ~186,000 the travel time would actually be around 1.3 seconds.
However, what really matters here is that the original poster is cuckoo for cocoa puffs.
Sorry to correct you but light travels around 186,000 miles per second and the average distance from Earth to Moon is around 235,000 miles. Thus light takes about 1.25 seconds to travel from Earth to Moon, not under a second as you said.
The same teacher that taught him about Space and Religion, taught him to spell? They are both on another planet.
The spacecraft that took people to the moon left the earth's gravity at about 25,000 miles per hour. As went out into space, it was first slowed down by earth's gravity, then it sped up having been pulled by the moon's. It took 3 days and 4 hours to reach the moon.
your teacher is ignorant , to say the least. And your "community collage"(sic) needs to close down.
This teacher must have taught spelling too since you don't know how to spell? Your teacher has no business teaching because he/she hasn't a clue about reality and neither do you after her influence. Maybe you are both under an influence!
P.S. By the way, which Planet are you and your teacher on?
Your teachers an idiot.
I doubt that you really exist.
Yuri Gagarin was the first man to orbit the earth. He was Russian. Besides landing on the moon, the Russians had all the firsts in space.
So what!
I think the US more than made up for it.
The US was the ONLY one to land on the moon. Russia's man in space was the beginning and end of their space career.
Uhhh so what have you ever done? People sit back and criticize others for achievement, I am more than just a little sick of people that can only criticize and sit back running court on the world. I'll look for you in 50 years on CNN for......... what?
I'm Russian and I hate the Chinese always claiming Russian space credits! China never did anything in space but pollute it with junk! China is not Russia. So what we both communist for time in the past, the man in space is OURS not chinese!
What was China doing in 1959? I think they were deciding who would live and who would die via ak-47 to survive the famines.
wjeri has it backwards, that was Russia's only significant achievement.
And the moon wasn't just a first, it's an exclusive club that only the United States is part of.
They had firsts down here as well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes
Yep, they had many firsts. Like, being first in have people die in space. Not a first I'd want to talk about. After the cosmonauts' deaths were investigated, the cause was traced to a faulty valve that had opened and caused the crew's air supply to leak into space. "Communist sources said Friday night the three Soyuz 11 cosmonauts died of embolism, or air bubbles in the blood, caused by a sudden depressurization of their space capsule as they returned to earth from history's longest manned space flight. The three cosmonauts, who died Wednesday, were buried Friday in the Kremlin wall, their nation's highest honor for the dead," reported The Argus on July 3, 1971.
:*There are certainly a lot of leatids like that to take into consideration. That is a great point to bring up. I offer the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you bring up where the most important thing will be working in honest good faith. I don?t know if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your job is clearly identified as a fair game. Both boys and girls feel the impact of just a moment's pleasure, for the rest of their lives.
Yuri Garian was ethnically Russian, but he was a SOVIET cosmonaut. your statement about "russians" having all the firsts is about as stupid as saying that Wapakoneta, OH sent the first man to the moon beause Armstrong happened to have been born there. Please learn the difference between Russia and the USSR or you sound like either an idiot or one of putin's PR writers.
For those that believe the moon landing was real. have a look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wym04J_3Ls0 and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mefEKqzq8cg and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOv_zvM-oJQ and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtWMz51eL0Y and many other pages.
Seriously? You're using a youtube video from mythbuster to support your claim that the moon landing was fake? Are you kidding me? Get a grip, dude and watch the video yourself. The Mythbusters proved the faked moon landing theories were false.
too funny! Where do these wacko's come from? Must have escaped from the Tea Party.
I won't waste my time. The landings were real. First of all you know they can't keep a secret. Secondly, how many people would have to be in on it? You're imagining a few people in a studio could pull that off? Bunk! What about all the controllers? Would they be in on it? If not you would need to feed them very convincing fake data and need a whole team of people to create it. And something certainly did go to the moon-don't you think the Soviets would have announced to the world if their radar had NOT seen something leave orbit and go to the moon? Finally, if we were faking it just out to be the first on the moon why would we then go back 5 more times (6 more if not for the Apollo 13 mishap)? Wouldn't that just be asking to be found out.
Mythbusters already went over everything the idiots come up up with. I was a kid during the moon missions and followed them closely. As an adult I have read tons of material including NASA mission reports, many books about the spacecraft, the design and testing of all components, the computers aboard the command and lunar modules, and so forth, even a whole book about the design, testing, and flights of the F1 first stage engines. This stuff is NOT FAKE.
It's just so ridiculous and a huge insult to the people who worked so hard not to mention 3 astronauts who died in the Apollo 1 fire. It's really sad when people have nothing better to do than to denigrate the achievements of others.
Where is the report button when you need it? Hey guy, do you realize that those videos are the SAME VIDEO posted over and over again? Just because you keep spamming that stupid video doesn't make it true and it NEVER will.
And before all this he was a US Marine and a PT god. Semper Fi John.
Americans were much skinnier then.
Poor China, they didn't even exist back then. So they have to try to latch onto Russia's success.
any person attempting to leave the earths orbit would be instantly killed by radiation. nobody ever went to the moon, it was faked and that was proved years ago.
Get a life, dude.
you are a total fool. and it was proven years ago. fool
Just like anyone attempting to travel in the ocean will sink instantly, right?
hahaha yours is the best rofl. I guess they never made it to the marianis trench either hahaha sorry idk about the spelling on the trench but some people are just not all there. Sorry for their lack of science knowledge.
Johnny s_hat his pants again...
I heard the Earth is really flat... not round as we're made to believe.
Round? Your saying it's round? What are you talking about?
@ The Real Truth: ...um...ever heard of a little something called SARCASM?
That means that Russia never went into space then.
What color is the sky in your world where you live?
Oh yeah and I guess this is another good example of why we should pour trillions of dollars into education. True, true. You have to be kidding me. So if you don't believe in scientific work how can you explain how the radiqtion never killed you here on earth. Atmosphere, solar winds, ohhhhh you believe in that but not....... Wait, is this Billy Smiff I remember you from grade school, Billy you pinhead.
Keep working for that rent money.
Proven by whom or what? Where's your evidence to support your misguided theory?
Is the world flat too? Will you fall off the edge??
Hey john, please change your name. You're an embarrassment.
The Van Allen radiation belts are about 25,000 miles wide. At 25,000 miles-per-hour the Apollo command module would pass through them in about 1 hour. The radiation levels weren't all that high outside and the astronauts were protected because they were inside the metal spacecraft. They wore dosimeters to measure the radiation they were exposed to. It was about the amount you get when receiving a chest x-ray.
Proven by who? Some idiot in his home who prints his own books from a consumer printer and binds the pages by hand? A guy who has a couple of photos he found that he thinks proved it's fake? The same guy who claims he knows how set designers and prop guys mark props to be used but was proven wrong by a couple of magicians from Las Vegas? If that's the guy you think proved the moon landing was fake, then you have been drinking from the same vodka labeled water bottle that he's been drinking from.
Glenn was great, but Shepard took the bigger chance on his short trip at the top of that Mercury-style bottle rocket at a time when we were used to seeing our missles in the US turn into blazing pinwheels.
travel to the moon was not possible in 69, and it isnt possible now, and not in 100 years or 500 years. its simply impossible
You're simply a twit
Rishabhcew on February 20, 2009 I really liked your chnenal and this video. If you need any help getting this video exposed I use a site called tubeviews.(net) It has really helped like 20 of my main videos get to the top in position. Its nice.I like what i watched.
Getting from orbit to the moon is not that difficult. It's getting into orbit with all your equipment in good shape that's the problem. Also, we know more about the dangers of radiation than we did back then.
Chinese never did anything in space! Quit claiming Russian's space credits!
China is not Russia!
Poor John, the voices in his head keep screaming at him day and night. Poor, poor Johnny Boy, he still believes the world is flat which actually makes sense after his mommy ate all those paint chips while she was prego with him.
:You will find absolutely quite a lot of dlteias just like that to take into account. That is a great point to bring up. I will offer you the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly one can find questions just like the one you bring up where the most essential factor will be working in honest nice faith. I don?t know if greatest practices have emerged around things like that, but I am certain that your task is clearly identified as a fair game.
Please go away. You're not here for conversation or intelligent debate. Go back to trolling youtube.
Godspeed, United States manned space program, you are now relegated to commercial fleets – 5 yrs from now – to drop off supplies and pick up the garbage from the ISS, Russian Soyuz $65 million taxi rides to the ISS, $200,000 tickets for millionaires to take short rides into space, loss of courage and resolve and waving to China Russia and India vibrant manned space programs.
The American manned space program: in with a bang, out with a whimper..
John Glenn- He is such a good, All-American, moral man, strong in mind and body. Watch the Right Stuff and get a glimpse into the character of this real American hero.
I would love to have been alive back in those days. The days where men were truly men, supported their families, loved God, country and family, and when women were women and knew their place in life. Stayed home and nursed and nurtured the children and didn't make their men into wussies.....
Sounds like you're just looking for a handout.
Tammy you had me all the way to the comment about women staying home... Dear, if you want to be barefoot and pregnant more power to you. I prefer being able to make the choice to stay home and serve as a pez dispenser for children or go and earn the money I spend, right alongside my husband.
I do agree though, that was a time when men were men not the girlie men that are being raised today...
Theirs others solar system not far from here have Earthlike planets around there sun same as we do. Think for one moment our sun is 18ins from here while some suns or stars is only about 1/2 ins from here which we could travel there with a new travel system go to them within a few hours.
What?!?!?
Houston we have a problem
I got to meet John when I was in 5th grade at a military base school in Cherry Point NC....I really admired him.
I was so moved, when he went back up at 77...that I had this song written by the time he was in orbit. http://www.folkalley.com/openmic/song.php?id=107
For those that belive the moon land was real have a look at this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wym04J_3Ls0 )
Please stop spamming your stupid youtube link.
I was a junior in high school when John Glenn went on his ride around the earth. It seemed amazing at the time that such a thing could be done. I was also sufficiently knowledgeable of the mechanics of space travel to understand just how dangerous Glenn's mission was. That he returned safely to earth was as much a stroke of luck as a result of science and engineering.
Although a lot has been accomplished through the years to remove some of the danger, the loss of two space shuttles and their crews, as well as the near-disastrous Apollo 13 mission, emphasizes the fact that our astronauts, as well as those of other countries, were taking sizable risks on each mission. I salute these people who were willing to do so in the furtherance of scientific knowledge.
I think he opted for RP-1/LOX (kerosene + liquid oxygen) speed.
.
I always thought that Godspeed was Warp 1. 😀
My parents let me stay home from school that day, just as they did when Alan Shepherd took the first sub-orbital ride. I can remember Walter Cronkite's non-stop commentary during the time Glenn was in space and the elation when he landed safely. Not so many years later, I was working in Ireland at the time of the last Apollo flight. It was the the first time that live coverage of a spaceshot had ever been broadcast in Ireland, and the guesthouse where I was living had the only color TV for miles around. I'll bet 100 people were crowded into the common room for the reentry. There were those few minutes where communications blacked out and the room was absolutely silent. Then those 3 glorious parachutes popped opened on live TV, and the room went crazy! Being the only Yank there, I had my back pounded upon and my hand shaken for at least an hour. And I lost track of how many pints of Guinness showed up in front of me.
Those were good times to be an American. John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, and all the other astronauts made us proud.
Great memory, well told!
Hard to imagine Europeans ever congratulating Americans or expressing any kind of comraderie with Americans over anything.
Hard to imagine such ignorance.
I have a picture of Mr. Gleen in his USMC uniform with his signature. It is my only prized possesion of an era gone by. I will always remember his words as he orbited the earth all those many years ago. I plan to have that picture placed in my casket and laid to rest with me.
Yes he is a really remarkable man nice compliment you give...
That's what you think. Your family may decide differently when you're dead and won't know the difference. 😉
Yeah, I really want to be buried with the picture of some guy. . .
I hope we establish a colony on the moon and then go to Mars. Today's children need to be better educated in math and science and that is the way to do it.
Our children and their children will learn math alright, but it will be only be subtraction as they watch how much money comes out of their paychecks to pay for it. The cost for the space shuttle program is somewhere around $196 billion and they stayed close to home. How many trillions would be needed to send an entire colony to the moon and send regular re-supply runs?
We have a tech based economy. For that, the government needs to "prime" the tech market development. Right now, that means Congress has two choices. Spend $196 billion in new war machines or $196 billion in new space machines. Personally, I think it is far better to spend that money on space, than on even more wars.
So totally agree with you! There was probably a place and time when we needed, and could afford, the space program, but in today's times, even IF we needed space exploration we can't afford it.
Oh, Dan. Why oh why do people like you say such things? Haven't you ever thought to actually look up what NASA really spends? NASA's budget is around one half of one percent of the federal budget. The Dept. of Homeland Security has a budget more than twice that. The Iraq war could have funded all of what NASA does, literally for decades.
In the age of instant information it's not OK to make things up; not when you could just look up a real answer instead. You BELIEVE that NASA is a huge source of gov't spending but you never bothered to look and see that it's really near the bottom of the barrel. Go, now, and look at the actual numbers. This information is not hard to find.
We'll WISH we had gone back to the moon once the Chinese are set up there and mining the relatively abundant Helium 3, which will soon become very important in fusion research. It's hard to find on Earth, and we really wouldn't need a lot of it for the purpose, but if the Chinese have it all, do you think we'll EVER see any of that?
It was 196 billion over 30 years, Dan.
NASA gets about one half of one percent of the Federal budget to do everything it did – the Shuttles, the telescopes, the probes to the planets.
Can anyone name a half cent on the dollar we spend anywhere else that's as productive?
My first hero... I had an autographed (real) picture of him. Wish I had it now...
God Bless John Glenn
We are in space. there is at least one U.S. astronaut on the ISS at all times.
NASA and private companies are developing space craft to ferry U.S. crews back and forth from the ISS.
Until then we fly on Russian spacecraft. Is that a problem? If it is then you are very short sighted.
NASA in the meantime is developing a new launch vehicle and spacecraft to take us beyond earth orbit.
That will require some time because of the dangers of traveling in interstellar space ( radiation issues )!
But this new system should be flying by 2020 or so.
We are in space and we will always be in space as long as corporations don't over charge us for their services.
I don't think we have to worry about 'Interstellar Space' for a while. 'Interstellar Space' is the space between 'Stars'. Travel between the Earth and the Moon is termed 'Trans-Lunar Space'. Travel between the Earth and other planets within the Solar System is termed 'Inter-Planetary Space'.
My 1st grade teacher, Mrs McClelland, walked her entire class from the school 2 blocks to her house, where we all sat around her TV to watch John Glenn land.
now that was a teacher!!! couldn't do that now...
Kids couldn't walk 2 blocks today because they are 'to fat'. The government would make them take a school bus for 2 blocks.
Watch the Movie, The Right Stuff,.. excellent
Everything about the space program was cool back then and really gave the U.S. something to shoot for. It's not at all like that today, the way it permeated American consciousness. I remember Kellog's Corn Flakes had a mail in offer in which a kid could get a "Corny 7" rocket, which were two cardboard tubes which, when one was quickly pushed inside the other, compressed the air inside and forced out the rocket capsule, which looked like the Mercury capsules.
I believe I know how Mr. Glenn felt when looking down on the home planet just sitting their seeing every thing pasting by ever so slow. Other Earthlike planets look similar to our Home Planet except large body of water on it surface.
Cuckoo for coco puffs
"their their"
"Their their"? Whose whose what?
It's a very different feeling to look out a window with your own eyes and see the Earth there, and know it is your home. Astronauts have described the experience at great length, and almost universally they describe it as a much deeper and more powerful experience than seeing pictures or movies.
Funny how people on Earth describe 'real' horrible event as 'something like in the movies', yet the astronauts describe a 'real' space event as 'nothing like a movie'.
Amazing to think of how quickly we went from an orbit of the earth to landing on the moon (7 years!?!). If we decided today to go back to the moom, we couldn't do it in 7 years. Shows what we're capable of when we put our hearts and minds together. Sad what has become of the U.S. space program.
do u still believe that americans went to the moon. thats just stupid. really really stupid.
(chuckles) Pot calling the kettle black. Yes "u".
hint: dictionary, and punctuation.
Do you really believe we DIDN'T go to the moon? Stupid. Really stupid!
do u still believe u no how 2 spel? Then spell this: http://www.clavius.org/index.html
read, and use Google if you have trouble with the big words.
When you are finished, spell this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/20/buzz-aldrin-punches-moon_n_241664.html
To quote one of the astronauts (Mike Collins or Alan Bean): If the moon landing was a fake, why would that fake it six more times?
...why would THEY fake it six more times
The astronauts that landed on the moon left reflelctors that lasers can be bounced off of to determine the moon's distance at a given moment. Those reflectors are routinely used by scientists and students around the world. How do you suppose that's happeneing?
Perhaps all the hundreds of people who have used them over the last 40 years are in on it too?
Its beyond wonderful that our imagination was captured by our quest for space back then.
I have some DVD's of the "Mighty Saturns" (from http://www.spacecraftfilms.com). These are a great reminder when we challenged ourselves to be our best.
Today, I wish we would pay more than lip service to another kind of "space program" today – that of energy independence.
And all the computer power for those Apollo landings was less than what's in your car today. It was all slide rules and trig tables back in the day. from a controls perspective, it would be much easier to make it back today, HAL9000 aside...
I was working at the tracking station in Hawaii that tracked that satellite. Brings back some good memories.
Humans don't need to enter space. We build robots to do it for us.
There are a lot of thing humans don't NEED to do, but we do them anyway ... "because it's there."
One of those things is making irrelevant comments about an article celebrating a 50 year old achievement.
Some of us do have that need.
One of the things we NEED to do is feed and house our homeless and provide for our senior citizens. Once THAT is done, we can turn our interest to the stars. First things first folks...
I was 8 years old when Glenn flew in 1962, and almost 16 when Armstrong stepped onto the moon seven and a half years later. The space program captured my imagination and to this day I make my living in the aerospace industry, having spent time in space, defense, and commercial segments. In those days, a female engineer was a rarity, to say the least, and I don't recall a lot of other "minorities," either. I didn't break that mold – I became a business person, working in pricing, program management, and contracting. It used to be that I'd be the only person who was not a white male in almost all my meetings. Today, I look around and see many very gifted young women in technical fields, and we're probably a majority on the business side. Other miniorities are better-represented, too. The space program provided a giant impetus to our entire country AND PLANET, and aerospace technology continues to do so. I wish we were not in the budget crisis we're in, because our country could use an infusion of energy like that provided by the space program in the 60's. Still, a moon colony at this juncture is not the right answer. I hope we can continue to sustain our skills and initiative until there are more resources available to take it to the next level once again.
Very interesting!! Congratulations for breaking your own barriers.
We can still do it. Private space endeavors are heating up, and many of them have international support. There are a lot of people who want this dream badly. Maybe enough to reach a new critical mass. People got really excited when Rutan won the X-Prize, and when Virgin Galactic starts service, there should be a whole new wave of people dreaming of space.
It's slowly getting closer. Don't stop. Don't give up. Reach.
I hope you're right. I think it was much easier to focus in the 60's. Back then, the people who thought the earth was created 6000 years ago and the rest of the tin foil hat crowd didn't have such easy access to attention. Maybe for that reason, I don't think they felt so empowered, either. The rest of us were all pulling to the same stroke count, and they were bobbing along by themselves in the wake somewhere. Now, thanks to the miracle of technology spawned in large part by the space program, the maniacs have linked up with one another and think they should be the coxswain. This cannot be allowed to happen.
Thanks for sharing your story. Yes, it would be great to go back to the moon or travel to Mars, but (as my parents would often say), we can't afford it. A real shame.
Those were the days where heroes were heroes, not celebrities.
Agreed.
May we someday get back in space...
Godpseed.
China isn't Russia! China stop bragging on Russia's achivements! Im' proud Russian and Chinese always bragging on Russian achievements! Chinese never did anything in space! They only pollute it with garbage.
Chinese aren't Russian! Quit trying to claim our space credits!
Russia is not the Soviet Union! You as a Russian are attempting to usurp the accomplishments of the SOVIET UNION – a union of countries of which Russia was only one, albeit large member. Russians' attempt to take credit for anything "good" that happened under the Soviet Union is nothing short of disgusting, as you simultaneously try to disown any of the evils.
Sorry, but the only way that's ever going to happen, with the current idiot president, is atop a Russian rocket. The Russians finally won the space race – they must be laughin' their asses off.
The voyage of Friendship 7 was one of the sweeter memories from the bitter-sweet Cold War years. Nobody thought there was any sort of conspiracy or attempt to deceive the public behind that early space spectacular. As a nation, we were in a much better state of mind and spirit back in 1962. I was only 7years-old back then. I feel sorry for the 7 year-olds of 2012 who are growing up in a much more cynical, pessimistic, and spiritually colder world than the one I grew up in.